Creative Game Design: The Boss Fight in The Garage

Even if you´re not really into the Resident Evil-series, you might want to check out the latest entry only to witness one of the best boss designs so far this generation.

By
Aaron Vesterberg Ringhög

As a fan of good boss design I must say that the first real encounter I had with Jack in Resident Evil 7 is one of the best in a long time. If you haven´t played it yet, please know that this text will contain some spoilers regarding a certain segment of the early game, when our protagonist Ethan meets up with the police officer who found him inside the house.

That being said, let´s get down to it.

So ... I´m in the garage with a decapitated cop lying in front of me. To my right are some shelves and a parked car. To my left are more shelves and in front of me the garage-door. Since the space is so small and full of stuff, there´s really nothing I could do to run away from Jack, but maybe I could put the car between us.

Just like any boss-fight the environment is always key when preparing your strategy, and the fight against Jack in the garage is certainly no exception. I’ve fought bosses in smaller spaces before, but Resident Evil really takes this to a new level. Maybe it's not so much the small size, but rather the feeling of being stuck. In many other boss-fights I often have ways to catch my breath and rethink my strategies during the encounter, but not here.

I grab the gun from the officer on the ground and run towards the car. After shooting Jack a couple of times in the head, I´m suddenly out of bullets. “What now?” I think to myself. I run around in the garage looking for more bullets, but only find chemical fluid and a couple of car keys. “Car keys!”

With Jack walking towards me like a magnet drawn to metal, I feel the panic levels rising as I try to make my way to the car. I take a couple of hits, but manage to make it anyway and finally I open the door to the driver-seat, sit myself down, ready to start the car. But no.

Jack literally pulls me out of the car with one hand, tears the whole roof off and sits himself down in the driver's seat instead (!?!). “What the …?”

Out of nowhere, Jack is now starting the engine (inside the garage!?), and tries to run me over! I run, I try to get out of the way each time he tries to ram me against the wall. The rather small garage just turned even smaller and the feeling of imminent death is crawling up on me as Jack starts doing donuts in the middle of the room.

Unlike some of the worst bosses on Hard difficulty level, where they literally just absorb more damage as well as do more damage, Jack switches to a heavier weapon.

This is when the design aspect really kicks in. Just like when usual bosses have different patterns to follow or behaviors to remember, Jack completely switches his toolset when he drops his shovel and now attempts to run me over with the car. Unlike some of the worst bosses on Hard difficulty level, where they literally just absorb more damage as well as do more damage, Jack switches to a heavier weapon. And of course, a weapon that I actually never thought could or would be used, since it initially was just part of the environmental design and not the toolset. And this is also where my imagination as a player has to kick in and come up with creative (or dumb) ideas to survive and beat my opponent.

So I start to think.

If I try to run towards the room, I will get hit. If I try to go around him, he will go at me and if I stand still, he will do the same. My only weapon is my knife. My health is low and I play around with the thought of doing it all over again: “I might as well just die and try again.”

We have all been there before – in a hopeless situation where the boss has all the ammo he or she needs and full health and we have practically nothing at all, because we missed something during the earlier stages of the fight. That moment, when frustration takes over and all we can do is die and try again. That's where I was.

So I run straight towards the middle of the garage thinking I would likely get hit by the car and die, but … instead nothing happens..?

And this is the defining moment. The moment where we learn more about the design than about the boss itself. The moment where I realize that the toolset handed to my opponent is not only affecting him, but actually me as well.

To my surprise I now stand in the middle of the garage, with Jack in the car doing donuts around me, with the tires screaming and Jack shouting about how he is going to kill me. As an almost instinctive reaction to the surrealism of the situation, I begin to strafe around in circles, trying never to loose Jack out of sight, as I use my knife to desperately stab him over and over again. Again and again. My head is getting dizzy (I´m not really fond of spinning in any shape or form) and my patience is getting low, but I keep going. In some way, I believe that this could work! Again and again. Over and over with the knife and then … done!

You know the feeling that hits you when you think you have accomplished something, but it then turns out you’re not quite done?

Or so I thought.

You know the feeling that hits you when you think you have accomplished something, but it then turns out you’re not quite done? Well, yeah. Let me tell you about it.

As Jack takes the last hit from my knife and loses control over the vehicle, he drives right into the wall and the car goes up in flames. But right when I almost thought it was over, he crawls out of the vehicle (!).

Is it really not over? “Do I really have to do this all over again now? Why won’t he die?” I think to myself. My new found hope and strength is starting to disappear as Jack walks towards me, burning and stumbling. So I take out my knife again, thinking “What the hell, let’s do this.” And would you know – this time he actually doesn’t walk that fast, so I actually manage to take him down without any problems! The save icon in the top corner shows me I’ve done it right.

Finally.

The greatest thing about this particular boss encounter is that I´ve heard and seen other ways of taking down Jack down the garage as well. And this is my point: The dynamic design of the boss encounters in Resident Evil 7 shows that Capcom, even when they´re trying something totally new, still has the capability to stage some of the best boss fights in the industry. Tight, hectic, dynamic encounters with new toolsets offered not only to our enemies, but also to us as players. And that, in itself, makes Resident Evil 7 worth a look, even if you have never played the games before.

So now, if I may ask: How did you manage to survive the fight in the garage?